The strategies of small business incubation and promotion of creative enterprises are leading areas of inquiry for economic development scholarship and practice.
STARworks provides an opportunity to see how such place-based strategies develop and evolve. The cooperation between enterprises located within STARworks and between STARworks and other economic actors in the region is significant. The business support services that STARworks has provided to resident entrepreneurs are important. Especially in rural communities in which economic disruption is severe, as in central North Carolina, creating a new economic development agenda that is sensitive to political and cultural realities is difficult but possible.
In many ways, STARworks has arrived at its small business assistance program as though by accident. For this reason, this paper does not address how successfully it has implemented the strategy; rather, I have tried to use its experiences to highlight processes, partnerships, and approaches to thinking about arts-based development in the rural context. In the future, however, embracing an even more intentional and targeted strategy will be important for STARworks. A possible new role for the organization, recommended by the local economy advocate Michael Shuman, might be to build capacity for a business alliance or network to assist more business-to-business purchases (personal
communication, October 29, 2009).
There are many elements of STARworks that are innovative and exemplary -- both in terms of its small business entrepreneurship and tourism strategies. STARworks' most important role so far has been its ability to help stimulate spillovers and positive
externalities in a market ripe for development of creativity-based enterprise. The
cooperation between firms has resulted in new, spin off businesses like the brewery and biofuels production. Among the many examples described here, STARworks' clay
manufacturing operation, that supplies Seagrove potters, is an example of the market revealing a demand that the organization has stepped in to meet. Another impactful role for STARworks has been to provide the kind of hands-on technical support small
businesses need, as small business will likely be a more important generator of local growth than large firms in the future. Likewise, while STARworks is likely to capture
tourists already traveling to neighboring Randolph and Moore counties, the centrally- located town of Star (and Montgomery County, in terms of the region) is also well- positioned to develop overnight accommodations to draw even more tourists. If the STARworks strategy continues to involve careful selection of firms that are appropriately scaled, culturally sensitive, synergistic with local assets, and results in at least some employment for the existing local population, it should enable a stronger outcome. This case study shows that while STARworks has taken many advantageous steps, the
organization should continue to work to thoughtfully promote highly skilled jobs in a low skill area through a combination of training and recruitment.
As described in the introduction, tourism development driven by marketing local cultural, historic or other assets is an increasingly common strategy to improve the competitive advantage of rural communities. STARworks can provide tourists not only with retail opportunities to buy work, but also the chance to observe it being made, or the opportunity to participate in making work themselves. Selling the experience in addition to retailing objects made by STARworks artisans is a unique turn on arts-based rural
development that sets STARworks apart from, for example, Penland School, which offers long-term artist residencies but does not house entrepreneurial firms, or Seagrove, whose centralized events fail to provide visitors with opportunities for observation and
participation.
In sum, STARworks has demonstrated a positive economic impact and has the potential to continue to do so. The organization is still underperforming in terms of limited opportunities for locals, but most of the people interviewed seemed optimistic that this will soon change for the better. As it develops, STARworks will create value in the community as it captures more tourist dollars, sparks investment from grant-providing organizations, drives more local spending, adds to the tax base by revitalizing the mill building and environs, attracts diverse tenants who help diversify the economy, and draws new residents.
Lessons from the Case
Although STARworks is a new initiative, there may be some lessons that can be drawn from it. The learning by doing that the organization has undergone will perhaps be more relevant to Central Park NC and STARworks' future work in other counties, more so than for other regions to emulate. In many ways a peer to the successful western North Carolina business initiative HandMade in America, STARworks is using its arts-based development to enhance regional tourism efforts already underway. As Tewari and
McKethan (2005) show in their work on HandMade, a specific sequence of steps to develop individual enterprises can "produce a regionally relevant outcome." Likewise, what
STARworks has learned about incubating a set of diverse businesses united by the broad umbrella of creativity and environmental responsibility, and how to be mindful of local politics and culture, are two lessons that will be relevant and replicable to their work in other counties. However, while the organizational strategy may be a constant the business mix could change. Ceramics, for example, is a suitable industry for Randolph and
Montgomery Counties but could be a mismatch for the other six counties served by the organization.
Notably, STARworks is increasing regional relevance by linking business
opportunities to natural resources. STARworks uses the assets of the region to clearly and thoughtfully direct the type of creative enterprises it chooses to invest in, such as taking advantage of the market opportunity for clay and biofuels. A possible lesson for other regions, that may have already identified a set of local assets in creative industries, might be to consider whether targeted external recruitment of firms or individual entrepreneurs could support and improve those local resources and development agenda. Indeed, what is interesting about this case study is that is shows how place-based strategies need not be understood entirely in terms of their indigenous assets, but can fruitfully link recruited, nonlocal firms to local actors.
Finally, STARworks is showing leadership in positioning to develop other small businesses that can meet a current unmet demand (which is a common part of import substitution strategies). For example, there is no graphic design service provider in Montgomery County, and STARworks has previously sought these services in Charlotte. A
catering company, a movie theater, expanded instructional courses, and a gallery from which to sell locally made work are other services the organization is considering. There is also an opportunity to pursue further development around the region's heritage.
Montgomery County and Star are well known for an annual fiddler's convention that is now in its 83rd year. Such a rich cultural asset may make Star a perfect location for a recording studio to capture this legacy. Many ventures similar to STARworks have hosted
entrepreneurs-in-residence that infuse the incubator with new ideas and help increase the reputation and caliber of the organization. The transferable lessons in these possible next steps would not be in the types of services STARworks is considering but rather that the process of business selection is guided by its defined set of goals.
To conclude, I note that a compendium of case studies about small town community economic development, Small Towns, Big Ideas, published by the School of Government at the University of North Carolina and the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center, identified a potentially reproducible strategy in the STARworks model. The key pieces of the Center's strategy that were highlighted include the way the organization went about re-purposing an existing mill building to draw new businesses, and its emerging function in the local community to organically shift expectations about long-range job creation (2009, p. 151), both of which were examined in depth in this case. STARworks also shows how place-based development strategies can sustainably support growth and revitalization -- and, as the case demonstrates, key to this approach was the selection of mission-specific businesses, both local and from outside the region, to incubate. The organization has used cultural and heritage resources, tourism, a branded identity, and the arts as critical parts of its growth strategy. It is an important example in North Carolina of the ways that culture, knowledge and ideas, part of the emerging theory of the creativity economy, can evolve at the local scale.
Addenda
Personal Communications
Anderson, Becky, former Executive Director HandMade in America, March 22, 2010 Bernard, Eddie, Wet Dog Glass Owner, November 22, 2009
Bernard, Angela, Wet Dog Glass Owner, November 22, 2009 Cagle, Kenneth, Owner, Comfort South, March 24, 2010
Collins, Margaret, Director, Creative Enterprise and the Arts, Triad Regional PTP, March 19, 2010
Coulthard, Marla, Associate Director, November 23, 2009 Eggleston, Susan, Mayor of Star, March 24, 2010
Interviewee #1, former Central Park NC employee, March 24, 2010 Fruin, Nickolaus, Director, STARworks Glass, March 23, 2010
Gottovi, Nancy, Executive Director, November 23, 2009 and March 23, 2010 Henry, Eric, President & CEO, Cotton for the Carolinas, March 18, 2010 Inskeep, Tony, STARworks Biofuels, March 23, 2010
Michael, Jeff, Director, UNCC Urban Institute, November 13, 2009 Pärtna, Anne, STARgarden Coordinator, November 23, 2009
Shibata, Takuro, Director, STARworks Ceramics, November 23, 2009
Stevens, Judy, Executive Director, Montgomery County Economic Development Commission, April 14, 2010
Informal conversations with: the members of the Central Park NC Board of Directors, local business owners, Michael Shuman, community members, North Carolina Department of Commerce Tourism Division.
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